I now understand a little more (I think) your position. I recall reading (some time ago) Patristic discussions on A&E needing to reproduce if they were granted eternal life with God, and if memory serves, the view was no, it would be unlikely that they would have offspring. But again, this is speculation, and I take Gen1:27-28 to be a general statement applcable to humanity as we know.
The importance of A&E is made clear by Paul where he talks of the first Adam and the second, Christ. I understand this to mean that God would have offered Adam eternal life and also teach other humans about God, thereby enabling humanity communion with God and perhaps access to the garden. However, I again emphasize that these are ‘what ifs…’ and the actual events discussed (figuratively and with metaphors and so on) are that A&E were bansished to live in a challenging world riddled with the outcomes of good and evil.
“free and self-controlled, being made by God for this end, that he might rule all those things that were upon the earth”;
“granted with authority and freedom”;
“immortal”
endowed with such “great gifts of God” that “the angel […] was envious and jealous of him [man]”.
All right!
Then, let us consider A&E inside the garden, that is, before they disobeyed and were not yet granted with eternal life.
This is precisely the moment where God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number (Genesis 1:28).
The offspring God had in mind at this moment was clearly intended to be born inside the garden.
Now, the crucialquestion is:
Was the nature of this offspring intended to be born inside the garden the same as the nature of the offspring that was actually born outside the garden after A&E disobeyed?
Consider now your principle:
If we apply this principle the answer to my precedent crucial question is clearly NO, isn’t it?
I agree with you that the propensity to sin (anger, jealousy, envy, murder, etc.) is present in human beings, including children.
In this respect I endorse the following view:
This propensity was NOT present in Adam and Eve in the beginning when they were created by God, but appeared only after they disobeyed, as a consequence of their transgression of God’s law.
I would be thankful to know whether you can agree to this too.
Dear GJDS,
I was quite happy when you posted this, and wanted to go in the direction you suggest.
In my view we have reached a very interesting point with your two other posts:
and
From these two posts it follows that:
The propensity to anger, jealousy, envy, murder, etc. is present in human beings outside the garden, including the children.
So the question arises:
Was this propensity already present in Adam and Eve in the beginning when they were created by God and dwelled inside the garden?
I think my question is clearly formulated. If not, please tell me.
Absence of answer would mean that you are not really interested in debating “why we sin and are in need of redemption” after all. But then you should declare this frankly.
I have shown that scripture identifies the original sin in the garden and then further examples outside the garden (Cane and Abel). Why this is so? A&E were tempted and failed to obey God’s command.
I note this blog has 1546 entries - frankly I think all that can be said has been said.
Here you are clearly acknowledging that A&E “failed to obey God’s command” because they were tempted (by the devil), and NOT because the propensity to sin (anger, jealousy, envy, murder, etc.) was present in them.
On the other hand you have acknowledged in previous posts that after A&E transgression, the propensity to sin is present in the human beings, including the children.
And so the most important Question arises:
If God endowed A&E with an original grace to offsetting the propensity to sin, why does God not bestows the children born after A&E’s sin with this same grace?
This Question, so precisely formulated, has not yet been asked and answered in any of the 1547 entries of this blog, although in different occasions we have come near to it.
I think this Question is key for understanding what “the transmission of original sin” is all about. Thus, toiling to answering it may be a great service to Christianity, and thereby to humanity, and it would be very sad if this thread gets closed without seeking for possible answers.
You have very much contributed to formulate the Question, and I thank you for this. Nonetheless I feel you are not willing to continue discussing it for some prejudice. So I would like to invite other posters who have contributed to similar debates, to take on the challenge (in particular: @MOls, @Christy, @Dale, @Mervin_Bitikofer, @jstump, @Cody, @Marvin, @Randy, @BoltzmannBrain, @Jay313, and whoever may be interested in).
Interesting question. I think the propensity to sin is something encultured as our identities formed in sinful human society (which is how I would characterize what being “in Adam” means). I think if it were possible to raise a human baby in a perfect community of sinless humans, he or she would have the same grace that is pictured as Adam and Eve’s pre-fall state, and the choice to sin would be a move from total innocence to rebellion, like theirs.
But since we are all encultured in fallen communities, by the time any human reaches an age of moral accountability, those subconscious sinful propensities are fully ingrained. I don’t think human depravity is an innate individual quality that can be individualized away from a corporate humanity and a corporate human identity.
I elaborate on it to what I think may be common ground for the main Christian views and evolutionary science.
I like very much this “thought-experiment”!
If God had doomed A&E and subsequent sinners to join “the devil and his angels” (Mathew 25:41) immediately after they sinned, then only innocent people without propensity to sin would dwell on earth: Human babies “would have the same grace that is pictured as Adam and Eve’s pre-fall state”, and then there would be no “state of original sin”.
So your “thought-experiment” makes clear that:
The “state of original sin” means nothing other than the “state with propensity to sin”.
This “state” is related to the fact that God allows the sinners to remain on earth in order they can atone and reach forgiveness.
I agree.
There is a “propensity to human depravity” that emerges at the very moment a new human being comes into existence, but it results from the fact that this human being comes into existence after some other human being has already sinned.
The ideas of “a corporate humanity” and “a corporate human identity” cannot be thought away from God’s will to redeem the sinners. In other words, we cannot define humanity away from God’s mercy.
The “human identity” is always relational and not only an individual mode of being.
Excellent. For me “being in Adam” means:
I would have been Adam, if my sin had been the first human sin.
One could also add that “the subconscious sinful propensities” result because the Darwinian selfish tendencies merge with the spiritual capabilities of human beings. Although this happens already at the beginning of each human person, the resulting “sinful propensities” remain subconscious till the age of moral accountability: Then they are fully ingrained.
To overcome this propensity, we need the grace Christ brought us:
The conclusion of all this seems to be:
God consents to “the state with propensity to sin” (“the state of original sin”) because having on earth people without such a propensity would be detrimental to the redemption of sinners. To have mercy on all, God bounds everyone over to “the propensity to sin”.
I think this is an important result and deserves further discussion. In particular, it may be interesting to ask:
Why would it be detrimental for the work of Redemption to keep on earth people without the propensity to sin?
Christy, with your comment we have undoubtedly come to a climax in this thread and it would be very valuable if an extended debate could follow.
Exactly, because humanity is a corporate, social, and cultural existence. It is interesting that we even sometimes think of individuals who are kept in solitary confinement in prison or abused by their caregivers by being kept locked away and isolated as losing aspects of their humanity.
That sounds a bit like God consents to sinful humans because he needs them for his plan to redeem sinful humans. That seems to be confusing the cause and the effect a bit.
I would think of it more that human societies continue to act on their sinful identities of free will, and individuals in those societies continue to seek God because of their desire to relate to their Father and Creator. God allows sinful corporate humanity to continue because his grace and love is powerful enough to draw out individual children from that community who will then form a new corporate humanity “in Christ.” I think the missio Dei is much bigger than the redemption of sinners, which is a means not an end. God’s plan is to have a beloved people for himself, full of faithful image bearers who participate in the work of establishing justice, righteousness and shalom on earth. Love and grace do not cease being a part of God’s character, even in the Eschaton when corporate humanity is fully redeemed and sin is no more.
Again, this presumes the main mission and goal God has is redemption of humanity, and I think it’s more expansive. God interacts with the reality he has created as it develops and plays out, like a parent interacts with children or an artist interacts with an in-process work of art. So I don’t know that “keeping people without the propensity to sin” is necessarily an option for God within the constraints of the reality he has created. To say that the reality God created has limits is not to say God has limits, just that he may willingly limit himself by choosing to participate and interact in a limited reality.
There was only one person on earth who was capable of never sinning. That person was Jesus, who was also Himself God. This suggests that something about humanity requires divinity to be able to avoid sin. I think that somewhere the connection between free will, self centeredness and lack of omniscience and omnipotence results in an inherent propensity to sin. Thus, it is human nature to sin. God did not will that we would sin, but created us in God’s image, to reflect and glorify God. However, being merely mortal and not ourselves God while also being granted free will means that we fall into selfishness because we cannot comprehend that God’s will is perfect. And we sin in spite of the fact that God also gave us moral sensibilities, suggesting that our self centeredness usually wins. So human selfishness in the absence of omniscience always leads to sin. Thus, I do not “blame” Adam and Eve for their failing, because any first human would have fallen. Genesis describes the first time a human couple existed who had been granted free will, moral sensibilities and a mandate to follow God’s perfect will, but they succumbed to sin, as all humans would have.
God’s plan of redemption includes showing us why we should want to follow Him and do His will instead of our will, even when we are incapable of doing His will on our own. When we realize that we cannot be perfect on our own and need God, only then can we truly repent, trust God with our lives and devote ourselves to Him. By grace we are saved, God enables imperfect humans to be in a relationship with the perfect God: that happened first in Eden when God created Adam and Eve, and that grace continues today to all who accept God’s redemptive work on their behalf
I agree. And human depravity is the most extrinsically verifiable Christian doctrine, clearly observed throughout all of human history, which is one reason why I believe the Bible is true. I don’t know of any other religion or world view that speaks such honest and clear truth about the state of humanity. Outside of Christianity, most people seem to try to gloss over this stark reality with beliefs that people can get better on their own. Yet having a clear eyed view of our own depravity is what we need to be able to hold onto the God who can make us our best selves, the people He designed us to be.
I would also have to suggest that there is an intrinsic aspect, as well, though, in that the individual certainly has a propensity to not thing right thoughts about God. (Think Elijah complaining in the wilderness.)
On the basis of the last posts I would like to propose 10 points where I think we are near to find common ground:
“God’s plan is to have a beloved people for himself, full of faithful image bearers who participate in the work of establishing justice, righteousness and shalom on earth”. In order bodilyhumans can be in the image of God and become like God, God decided to become human flesh and prepared a human body for his Son.
In the beginning the whole humankind was called and ordered to eternal life and become like God. Accordingly, God created Adam and Eve without any propensity to sin, i.e. endowed with the grace “that is pictured as Adam and Eve’s pre-fall state”.
Accordingly, God’s initial plan was incarnation, not redemption. God NEVER “consents to sinful humans because he needs them for his plan to redeem sinful humans”. For this reason, God created the first image bearers free from any sinful propensity (anger, jealousy, envy, lust, etc.), so that “their choice to sin would be a move from total innocence to rebellion”, as in fact it was.
This means: God’s plan “to redeem sinful humans” was triggered after the first human sin, i.e.: after there was sinful humans. In the causal order the sin is first (as a “cause”), and the plan for Redemption thereafter (as an “effect” of God’s love). The cause that there are sinful humans are we, humans, NEVER God.
However, it is important to stress: The redemption of the sinners aims to fulfill God’s initial plan of having “a beloved people for himself, full of faithful image bearers”. In this sense it holds that “the main mission and goal God has is NOT redemption of humanity”:
God could very well have achieved the plan of having “a beloved people for himself, full of faithful image bearers” without “indulging” in redeeming the sinners: He could have banned Adam and Eve and subsequent sinners to hell, immediately after each sin, so that on earth God would always have “a beloved people for himself”, formed by “righteous without need of redemption”.
However, God is love, and love moved God to ardently desire the salvation of sinners. So God completed his initial plan with the redemption of humanity, and made incarnation also a means for salvation.
The following two comments are most important:
After the first sin, God decided to bound everyone on earth over to the “propensity to sin” in order to have mercy on all: God make us aware of our limits (our incapability to be like God on our own) to move us sinners to repent, freely ask God for forgiveness, and search God’s help for not sinning again.
God endowed Adam and Eve with original grace to totally offset the “propensity to sin” without having to struggle for this: the only possible temptation was that of pride enticed by the devil.
By contrast, after the first sin in human history, and for the sake of salvation , God keep us all on earth with “propensity to sin” and feeling the temptation to sin by envy, lust, anger.
But by his incarnation, suffering and death on the cross, the Son of God Jesus Christ, restored the original state of grace so that we can overcome the “propensity to sin”, although not at once, but by struggling during our whole life on earth, as these two other comments state:
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
The 10 precedent points shed light also on two other comments:
In my view, since God creates us free, it does not hold that “any first human would have fallen” and “they succumbed to sin, as all humans would have”.
In fact, I think there are passages in Scripture supporting that:
At the time of the first sinners (“Adam and Eve”) there were image bearers who did NOT sin, and thereby confirmed that God created humankind free NOT to sin.
This hold after the first human sin. The “propensity to sin” was NOT present in Adam and Eve before they acted contrary to God’s will, because they were bestowed with special grace in the pre-fall state.
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
To conclude a suggestion
It would be a great way of concluding this thread if we could agree in a sort of common declaration on the basis of the 10 points above. I would like to propose that you (and all interested readers) review them and make corresponding suggestions for improving the formulations.
Sorry I’m late to the party. I’ll take a crack at your question and, if time permits, reply to the replies in a follow-up.
You ask the right question. It would be intrinsically unfair for God to grant the first humans a grace that he denied their descendants, yet still condemn them for Adam’s sin when they lacked his advantages. If Adam was privileged by God above me and everyone else who has ever lived, then why am I condemned for his sin? How does his sin wind up on humanity’s collective bill? As I wrote here, Kierkegaard pointed out the same problem in “The Concept of Anxiety (Angst)”. How does a perfect man in a perfect environment represent me, let alone everyone else, before God?
The answer is that Adam isn’t a literal individual; ha’adam (the man) is an archetypal symbol in an aetiological myth. The longstanding definition of a literary archetype is a symbol that represents a universal pattern in human experience. As an archetype, ha’adam symbolically represents both the human and the individual journey to “knowledge of good and evil” – moral maturity.
Why does the story of Adam & Eve resonate with each generation across the centuries? Because the story of the first humans traces the same journey that every individual has personally taken. The “innocence” of A&E was like the innocence of children, which is ignorance (again stealing from Kierkegaard). Infants are born without knowledge, whether of God or language or morality or riding a bicycle. All of those things are gained by experience, and all are aspects of cultural knowledge. Culture is the vehicle for “good and evil” to propagate.
Language and morality aren’t inborn. We learn how to speak and how to follow the rules of our society. When we’re children, we take the rules as iron-clad, handed down by authorities. But when children “come of age,” they do what Eve did. She applied her own moral judgment, a phenomenon that begins in adolescence and continues throughout the rest of life, and weighed whether the rule was hypothetically non-binding and contrary to her own self-interest (the fruit was “good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom”). The universal nature of temptation and sin appears at the end of a process of moral maturation that all children undergo. In the end, the adolescent applies her own moral principles, considers her self-interest, and declares her independence from God, albeit prematurely. The man, on the other hand, simply caves to peer pressure. He takes the fruit from the woman and eats it without apparent thought. If everyone else is doing it, me too!
So my answer to the question is that God did not grant A&E any grace(s) that we, their offspring, also do not have. That would be unfair. The reason that we’re in this fix is that everyone – from the first humans to the last – has sinned. Gen. 2-3 represents both the collective and individual journey from ignorance/innocence to moral guilt before God.
Right. Christ “had to be made like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in things relating to God… For since he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted” Heb. 2:17-18.
Amen
Having humans who were never tempted would be detrimental to the moral development of humans. The goal of God’s creation of humanity was that they would represent him upon Earth (Gen. 1:26-28). God “consented” to the possibility that they would choose evil, not good, in the same way that we choose to have children knowing that they may rebel against us. If you knew your children would reject your advice and live a life you didn’t approve, would you have chosen not to have them? Or would you continue to reach out to them no matter what?
Yes. Self-centeredness and not foreseeing consequences are the definition of childhood and adolescence. Selfishness is an evolutionary inheritance, and an inability to anticipate consequences is a biological fact of immature brain development.
Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that the doctrine of original sin is “the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith.”
Yes, this just speaks to God’s plan. He began with the end in mind, as even limited humans do.
Every single one of us moves from innocence to rebellion/independence. God wasn’t caught by surprise by human choice.
This means God didn’t know anything in advance. The cause of sinful humans is human choice, but that doesn’t necessitate that God’s plan had to change after humanity fell into sin. Again, this is a question of God’s foreknowledge.
We need to also remember that the freedom God has granted us includes the profound ability to repent (totally our free choice) and turn to God accepting what Christ has done.